Long Term Storage and Precision Dispensing of Precious Liquids

描述（由申请人提供）：珍贵的液体样品，如水基因组DNA，是目前正在进行的巨大努力的基础，以更好地了解疾病表型和基因型之间的关联。这些努力有望为更好地预防和治疗人类疾病铺平道路。许多实验室为了更好地了解常见疾病和罕见疾病，一次保存数千份珍贵样本的档案长达数年之久。现有的贵重液体样品管理方法存在诸多问题，包括库存控制不佳、在不直接接触样品的情况下搜索库存的能力差、由于蒸发导致样品浓度不断变化、等分样品所需的时间过长、样品丢失、贴错标签或经常被污染等。该项目的目标是开发一种用于长期储存贵重液体的系统并将其商业化，从而消除或显著减少所有这些问题。该系统将液体储存在带有机器可读标签的标准化容器中，以进行明确的识别。自动精密分配器，不需要移液管侵入，确保样品的完整性，同时分配微升等量的珍贵液体。配药设备和存档液体数据库应用程序之间的接口将允许实验室方便地保持准确的库存控制，并促进改进的实验计划。这种基于工作流程的系统将提高效率，降低基因组研究的错误率，确保宝贵的液体样品在库存和获取上花费的时间更少，无污染，保持其浓度水平，并正确和积极地识别。完成后，该系统将通过向生命科学实验室、法医实验室和医院销售来实现商业化。在项目一期中，重点发明的构建和测试取得了优异的结果，证明了可行性：(1)紧凑的长期储存和配药容器保持了珍贵液体的蒸发和抗污染；(2)用户友好的点胶机构，可提供1-1500份的无触点，具有最先进的精度；(3)利用敏捷软件的方法，在潜在客户的输入下，规划了一个用户友好的存档液体样品跟踪数据库应用程序。在项目的第二阶段，制造这种具有独特和永久标识的新型液体储存容器的技术风险将被降低（具体目标1），半自动和全自动精密点胶系统的商业版本将被设计和建造（具体目标2），基于工作流程的液体样品跟踪数据库将被建立并与存储盒和精密点胶设备集成（具体目标3）。这些早期版本的商用设备将在全国知名的遗传学核心资源实验室进行Beta测试。在第三阶段，利用其他资金，这个完全开发的新系统将被引入商业市场。美国和世界各地的研究实验室储存了成千上万珍贵的液体DNA样本，但使用效率低下且容易出错的方法来管理它们。Archivex正在开发一种用于储存、分配和库存贵重液体的综合系统，该系统将方便且价格合理，将通过降低劳动力成本来收回成本，并将通过提高生产力和实验室的有效合作来改善公共卫生。硬件将确保存储液体的完整性，并实现无污染的精确分配，而数据库应用程序将使研究人员能够更好地利用他们的完整样本收集，包括更有效地分析实验异常值

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Precious liquid samples such as aqueous genomic DNA are the bedrock for immense efforts currently underway to better understand associations between disease phenotype and genotype. These efforts promise to pave the way to better prevention and treatment of human disease. Many laboratories maintain archives of thousands of such precious samples for years at a time while they pursue better understanding of both common and rare diseases. Current methods for managing precious liquid samples are fraught with problems, including poor inventory control, poor ability to search inventory without directly accessing samples, constant sample concentration changes due to evaporation, excessive time required to aliquot samples, and samples becoming lost, mislabeled, or contaminated with significant frequency. The goal of this project is to develop and commercialize a system for long term storage of precious liquids that eliminates or significantly reduces all of these problems. This system stores liquids in standardized containers with machine-readable tags for unambiguous identification. An automated precision dispenser which does not require pipette intrusion ensures sample integrity while dispensing microliter aliquots of precious liquid. An interface between the dispensing equipment and an archived-liquid database application will allow laboratories to conveniently maintain accurate inventory control and facilitate improved experiment planning. This workflow-based system will increase the efficiency and reduce the error rate of genomic research by ensuring that the precious liquid samples are less time consuming to inventory and access, are contamination-free, maintain their concentration levels, and are correctly and positively identified. When completed, the system will be commercialized by marketing it to life- science laboratories, forensic laboratories and hospitals. In Phase 1 of this project, key inventions were built and tested with excellent results proving feasibility: (1) the compact long-term storage and dispensing container maintains precious liquid in an evaporation and contamination resistant manner; (2) the user-friendly dispensing mechanism can deliver 1-1500¿l aliquots touch-free with state-of-the-art precision; and (3) a user- friendly archived-liquid sample tracking database application was planned with the input of prospective customers using Agile Software methods. During Phase 2 of the project, the technology risk of manufacturing this novel liquid storage container with unique and permanent identification will be reduced (Specific Aim 1), commercial versions of the semi- and fully-automatic Precision Dispensing System will be designed and built (Specific Aim 2), and the workflow-based liquid sample tracking database will be built and integrated with the storage cartridges and precision dispensing equipment (Specific Aim 3).These early versions of the commercial equipment will be Beta tested in a nationally known genetics core resource laboratory. During Phase 3 using other funds this fully developed novel system will be introduced to the commercial marketplace. Research laboratories in the U.S. and worldwide store thousands of precious liquid DNA samples but use inefficient and error-prone ways to manage them. Archivex is developing an integrated system for storing, dispensing and inventorying precious liquids which will be convenient and affordable, will pay for itself through reduced labor costs, and will lead to improved public health by increasing the productivity and effective collaboration of laboratories. The hardware will ensure the integrity of the stored liquids and enable contamination-free precision dispensing, while the database application will allow researchers to better take advantage of their full sample collection, including more efficient analysis of experimental outliers